Tehran’s graffiti war

One of the
ways Tehran's
anti-government "green movement" has been protesting the June election is to
spray paint their message in green across the capital. Not impressed, Basij militia
members spend their days spray painting over the tags with their own messages,
in black.

“The green protestors have to spray in the middle of the night, but the Basij they can do it whenever they like”

Alireza is
a journalist and artist from Tehran.

Writing
slogans on the walls is a tradition in Iran. When there's a lack of
freedom of speech, we express ourselves with spray paint. It's exactly what
they did during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Only then, their message was much
more radical. What the green movement is spraying now is very moderate. It's
just a way of them saying ‘we're still here'. They've been doing it since the
presidential election in June.

The Basij
are trying their hardest to remove the messages. They go out every week with
black spray paint and scrawl over the messages written in green with
pro-government stuff. You see a green message go up on Monday. A week later,
it's been scrawled over with a message in black about loving [supreme leader] Khamenei.

The green
protestors have to spray in the middle of the night as if they're caught,
they'll be arrested. But when the Basij go out with their black paint, they can
do it whenever they like. I haven't heard of any protestors being arrested yet
as they're very careful and tend to stick to the smaller streets where they
can't be seen. They are becoming more adventurous though; recently I've seen
green signs appearing in the bigger streets too. Most shop and home owners don't
stop them. It's a kind of collaboration.

Alireza
sent us these photos, along with descriptions, from Tehran:

"Green =
shit". The V symbol, used by the green movement, is transformed into the
international symbol for toilets (WC).

Comments

Islamic Republic is a ridiculous mirror of the premier Soviet Unions. You can see it in many similarities between Sepah and KGB, but it's not as potent as pretends to the world. ... Anyway, it can't survive against virtual society on the net.
We will win.
Kamran, Tehran